August, 2009 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for August 2009

Surprise! Wi-Fi Alliance Says Travelers Want Wi-Fi on Planes

The Wi-Fi Alliance, the groups that certifies Wi-Fi devices and markets the wireless technology, has conducted a survey, released today, that found that 76 percent of people would choose an airline based on whether or not it offers in-flight WiFi-based broadband. However, only 31 … Read More »

Is Apple building a monthly television subscription service, like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster claims? Maybe! Munster also thinks the Mac maker is going to launch a television that wirelessly syncs with your other Apple devices, and predicts an Apple set-top box with TV input … Read More »

 
 

Most solar panels are strung together like Christmas tree lights, so that if one panel stops working, performs poorly or ends up in the shade, the whole string is affected. To address this problem, 2-year-old startup eIQ Energy came out of stealth mode Monday night … Read More »

Is it just me or is anyone else starting to get tired of all of these different mobile application stores popping up? I get that different platforms might need different stores, but one per phone platform is enough for me. After LG’s, the latest … Read More »

Dell Teams Up With Brocade to Tackle Cisco's Vision for Computing

Dell has signed partnership agreements with Brocade and Scalent to answer the threat posed by Cisco’s servers and the need to create a computing environment that can handle virtualized servers, networking and storage. The idea is to create what most call … Read More »

App Developers: Show Us the Money

In this new mobile platform world, app developers are the new kingmakers. Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t introduce their own app store, but the question of whether or not they’ll actually be able to profit from their efforts remains. (See our … Read More »

September 9 is indeed the day for the next official Apple press event, according to Apple itself via press invitations that were sent out today. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, CA at … Read More »

The Blackberry Desktop Manager (BDM) is the window into your BlackBerry from your PC. It is the software that makes setting up and updating the smartphone a simple affair. Unofficial versions of the BDM are always leaking to the web, and folks like trying out … Read More »

Convos: Online Communication for Groups

Everyone has a different way of doing things. Fortunately, there’s a huge number of web services that offer groups different ways to coordinate their activities. Convos occupies a middle ground between basic group communication systems like listservs and Google Groups, and full-fledged project management … Read More »

Now that many of us have upgraded to Snow Leopard, I would like to start a forum where you can share your favorite UI changes. Use Command + Shift + 3, Command + Shift + 4, a third party screenshot capture … Read More »

One would be hard-pressed to find a more appropriate film than We Live in Public to illustrate how broken the independent feature film distribution market is. A rumination on the life and works of online video pioneer Josh Harris, the mad genius behind Pseudo … Read More »

http://www.youtube.com/v/aDOB-vshc0E&border=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 Anything But iPod dropped the $399 I wouldn’t — I thought about it, though — and they’re now the proud owners of a Creative Zii EGG developer edition handheld. This early video look offers a detailed introduction to the hardware as well as … Read More »

More Must Reads

With the Apple iPhone dominating tech culture, and applications for said device amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the industry, it’s no surprise that more than one web series has risen to guide users to the best and the worst software … Read More »

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — that $787 billion behemoth of a bill that was signed into law in February and was meant to stimulate the U.S. economy — so far seems to have had a beneficial but lackluster impact on the home energy … Read More »

We love Apple. We love its style. We love its vision. We love its marketing and PR. A generation of the world’s best designers cut their teeth on Apple computers, much as they might dislike admitting their sense of taste was shaped by a consumer … Read More »

Thanks to our neighborhood fantasy football draft last night — or what I like to think of as my annual $75 charity contribution — I got a chance to work with my EVDO modem in Snow Leopard. On Friday I first performed an upgrade … Read More »

The mobile content distribution industry began to undergo a seismic shift last year with the launch of Apple’s App Store, and a host of competitors from across the mobile spectrum are in various stages of following Apple’s lead. Google was first with Android Market, which is built … Read More »

I remember when Dave Winer introduced Really Simple Syndication (RSS) in Radio Userland way back in 2001. At the time, the biggest problem was finding sites that had available RSS feeds. Today, it’s rare to find a site without feeds. Despite feeds becoming a regular part of … Read More »

GM Green Strategy in a Nutshell: General Motors’ Britta Gross says the extended-range electric Chevy Volt is intended as a halo car to change people’s perception of the company, but it’s developing hydrogen fuel cell tech since “we can’t just assume batteries are going to solve … Read More »

Shhh! Don’t tell Liz, but a good chunk of my morning has been spent watching the U.S. Open online. The good news is that it’s actually quite cool. The interface is easy to use and gives you the ability to preview (with li’l video thumbnails!) … Read More »

Another unofficial indicator is telling me that Intel’s Pine Trail platform won’t be seen in netbooks until January’s Consumer Electronics Show. An ASUS Eee PC roadmap is leaking through the web right now and there’s nary a Pine Trail mention on it. Couple that with … Read More »

The iPod Touch might be hiding in the shadow of its big brother, the iPhone — both in volume, and revenue — but is it possible that the Touch is more disruptive than its cellular sibling? The iPod Touch has seen huge growth within Apple’s iPod … Read More »

Mass deployment of electric vehicles isn’t just about cars and kilowatt-hours, but technology. After all, it will take wireless networks and software to help manage charging in a way that minimizes strain on the power grid and maximizes use of clean power sources like solar … Read More »

Poor NVIDIA — it looks like your honeymoon with Apple is over. There hasn’t been an official announcement from Cupertino yet, but a glance at the customization options for high-end iMacs (the ones that use discrete graphics) and Mac Pros reveals that ATI Radeon HD 4000-series … Read More »

Grabbing $100 million in a highly competitive stimulus program isn’t a bad start for one of the largest electric car charging infrastructure projects to date. That grant went out earlier this month to ECOtality subsidiary eTec, which has partnered up with Nissan, utility San Diego … Read More »

On a daily basis, I use Mint with my Apple iPhone 3GS to review and manage my financial transactions. Mint securely pulls the data directly from my financial institutions, so there’s practically no data entry involved. Unfortunately, Mint doesn’t yet offer a client for other … Read More »

Team Effect jokingly calls its competition the “the vast swathe of online task lists…and Basecamp clones” that make up the current market for project management solutions. The claim is that, unlike its competitors, Team Effect is “fun to use.” I won’t go that … Read More »

NBC Universal Goes to the Gas Pump; signs deal with Gas Station TV to put its local and national programming on TV screens at up to 1,000 gas stations. (Multichannel News) Court Tosses Cable Subscriber Cap; Comcast and its ilk now have the green light to … Read More »

Naturally, as a contributor to this blog, I purchased a Snow Leopard family pack the first possible day. Some people may have pre-ordered on Amazon, but they missed out on the in-store experience. My mother lives close to an Apple store, so I decided to stop … Read More »

It’s a pretty safe bet that Verizon is clearing shelves to make room for a handful of new handsets. After all, its leaked road map shows an updated BlackBerry Storm, a new Curve, and the anticipated Sholes — quite possibly, the Android handset … Read More »

The first wave of applications for a piece of the almost $4 billion in smart grid stimulus funds were due the first week in August and drew close 50 utilities that we heard of (and hundreds more that have been a lot … Read More »

August 2009 will be remembered as something of a mixed bag for Apple. There was Google Voicegate, and the backlash it generated from the tech press and public alike, culminating in questioning from the FCC. On the other hand, Mac OS X’s latest big … Read More »

There is no doubt that Facebook is the 900-pound gorilla in the world of social networks. But recently I read a post about Facebook being better than Twitter for business, and I don’t think that’s always true. Granted, I recommend Facebook Pages to my clients, … Read More »

We have two homebrew apps of the day for the Palm Pre, which brings the total current count to 170 titles. To tell the truth, we’ve covered both of these before, but both have recent updates worth a mention. The first is the great app fileCoaster, … Read More »

Clearwire today said it’s hired Teresa Elder to be the new president of strategic partnerships and wholesale, which will see her market the WiMAX company’s services to its cable partners and consumer device makers, and that Chief Strategy Officer Scott Richardson … Read More »

Sacre bleu! Amazon and Google’s digital book efforts could force publishers to slash prices and put them out of business, says Arnaud Nourry, head of French book publisher Hachette. He is concerned that unilateral pricing by e-book resellers like Sony, Amazon and Barnes & Noble … Read More »

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, now does whatever Disney says he can. Disney announced today that it is acquiring superhero factory Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in cash and stock. The move gives the mouse house ownership of more than 5,000 Marvel characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man and … Read More »

Take away India’s mobile miracle and you soon realize how much the country lags in terms of PC penetration and broadband adoption. According to recently released data from the Indian government, the total broadband subscriber base rose to 6.8 million in July from 6.62 million … Read More »

FOX will be adding a social media spin to repeats of Glee and Fringe, integrating Twitter alongside the shows. These so-called tweet-peats will feature Twitter messages from show cast members and from viewers watching at home. During the episodes, audiences can follow the tweets from Read More »

As we enter the era of the app store, Apple is clearly the dominant player on the field. The company’s iTunes-based mobile application business generates an estimated $2.4 billion hundreds of millions of dollars a year. (According to AdMob, $200 million a month, though … Read More »

Not long ago, I wrote about TDWcamp, a BarCamp-like event for web workers held in Paris a few months ago. It was useful, edifying and a ton of fun. Today, while browsing some showcase articles at Smashing Magazine, I discovered Freelance Camp, … Read More »

The trademark fight we first covered recently over the “smartbook” trademark in Germany has heated up as we have received word that Qualcomm has been hit with a restraining order in Germany over the use of the term.  A press release has indicated that a … Read More »

While you’re enjoying a cup of joe in a local cafe, the folks sitting around you typing on their laptops and smartphones could very well be purchasing something online. Nearly 38 percent of people who use a cafe’s Wi-Fi say they make an online purchase during … Read More »

Calix, a company that provides equipment to help carriers, cable companies or rural broadband providers deploy and manage fiber networks, has raised $100 million in a combination of debt and equity financing. The funding will help the company meet demand for its … Read More »

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